Category Archives: Resolutions and Intentions

Are you finding it difficult to stick with the intentions or resolutions you made just over a week ago? Have you perhaps already once or twice considered breaking your resolve or have maybe even given up on it already?

Our motivations are the original rock that starts an avalanche. Motivations turn into goals. When events or people (especially when the person is our self) are perceived to interfere with reaching our goals, our emotions can easily cascade and flare into negativity.

How we approach even a momentary lack of resolve makes a difference. If we fall into a state of negative emotion our capabilities are reduced. Brainpower is being distracted away from taking clear and effective action. Indulging or wallowing in negativity for more than an instant is totally ineffective.

The very thing we need most when the negativity alarm goes off, perhaps when we are telling ourselves we’ll never be able to stick with our resolutions and achieve our goals, is to turn off the alarm and use all our brainpower constructively in service of our goals.

Believing that we have no control over negative emotions is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we refuse to give up control of our own habituated thought processes and choose instead to disarm the very thoughts working against us, eventually we will win and gain control of our emotions. Once we have that control back, we can get clear again on our motivations. The motivations-goals-emotions-ideas-actions system will then come into alignment to support us.

When we falter, it’s a good use of time and brain power to reconsider what our motivation was in making the resolution or setting the intention or goal. Peeling back another layer, why do we have this motivation? What are the goals that serve these motivations? What will help us to reach those goals? What impeded us in the moment when we slipped? Once we have a better understanding, what do these insights imply in terms of action decisions?

In the absence of protracted negativity — using it just as a useful alarm warning system — we are best able to get back on track, with the resolve to continue to strive toward the goals that we set.

Begin again today and take at least one step each day toward carrying out your resolutions.

As we approach a New Year, many of us are considering making New Year’s resolutions. Are you wondering if you’ll stick with your resolutions this time around, and thinking about how you can strengthen your resolve?

Here are some thoughts on resolutions from my guide on 7 Life Tools for creating lasting happiness — The Navigator :

Consider that because our mind acts just like a computer, when we make a resolution our mind makes a prediction of how we will act in the future. Based on past experience our mind’s prediction will tend to be that we are not going to follow through on that resolution. The mind predicts, generally, that we are going to continue to behave exactly the way we have in the past. The mind will remember that we make resolutions from time to time, but they are mere sayings, not actual intentions or actions.

This is because there is no feeling of change inside when a resolution is made; so our mind feels that the resolution has not changed anything, and therefore it will not change anything.

To start making real changes it will help to prove otherwise by acting immediately on your resolutions.

Start with a baby step. Don’t resolve to make huge changes instantly, for this is rarely possible. Take it in the slowest possible stages, one baby step at a time!

We are grateful to each of you for the opportunity to share ideas and tools to help optimize your journey through this life. In the upcoming weeks we’ll be providing more tools to help you actualize your resolutions.

We wish you all the very best in the coming year(s), starting with a safe New Year’s Eve.